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Despite the steady, unwavering light, the animals seemed to blur with motion, spinning round their snarling victim. He had read from some treatise that, if seen from above, it was clear that the circling hounds actually formed an inward spiral of flesh and rending canines; and the scholar had gone on to suggest – to a subsequent chorus of disbelief – that the animal in the centre, by virtue of its own writhing, twisted form, was itself spiralling inward. The man’s final outrage was to wonder if the sculpture depicted, not many beasts, but one: an animal destroying itself, turning round and round and ever inward into a vortex of self-annihilation.
For the historian, the only appalling thing about the scholar’s interpretation was its plausib
ility. After all, had the artist not sought to convey a hidden meaning with this scene, the beast in the centre of this violent storm would have been a stag, perhaps, or a bull.
Though he heard the door to the chamber squeal with motion, Rise Herat did not turn round until the newcomer spoke.
‘Here, historian? In the name of Dark, why?’
Rise Herat shrugged. ‘It is private enough.’
Cedorpul grunted. ‘The only spies in the Citadel are our own.’
‘Yes, curious, that. After all, isn’t the purpose of spying the protection of our own people? Have we descended into insouciance so far, priest, as to claim, with a straight face, that we are protecting our people from themselves?’
The round-faced man pursed his lips, and then waved dismissively.
Rise Herat smiled. ‘“Oh deadly language, how so you offend me!”’
Scowling, Cedorpul said, ‘Remind me not of that wretched man, our court coward, our sneering seneschal of high mages! His elevation was shortlived. I will stand in his stead.’
The historian turned back to ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. ‘Do you recall this, priest?’
‘Before my time. It is ghastly. No wonder it hides here. Only in darkness could you now bless this. Douse the lights – we’ve no need of them.’
‘It is Azathanai.’
‘Is it now? Well, then yes, I can see why you’d be curious.’
‘All the others in here, however, are Tiste.’
Cedorpul waved dismissively. ‘Every fad fades in time, historian. If you would be the purveyor of hoary frenzies from before the age of modern enlightenment, then make a study of this chamber. Line the statues into a library of stone and mouldy bronze. Drag up a desk, light a candle, and pen your treatise.’
‘And what treatise would that be, priest?’
Cedorpul shrugged, glancing around. ‘The past is a litany of na?ve expectations.’
‘But at last, we are now much wiser.’
‘Just so.’
‘Well, there are indeed some, even other scholars, who find comfort in the belief that past ages in history can be seen as phases of our childhood, thus absolving them of knowing any better, and thus absolving us, in the present, of any lingering sense that maybe, once, long ago, life was better than it is now.’
‘Is this the reason for summoning me? I’d rather a rough draught on a tattered scroll set upon my desk, where I can get to it a few decades from now, when at last I have the time.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Rise Herat replied, still studying the Azathanai bronze. ‘But things are not better, are they?’ He turned, waved a hand in a broad sweep. ‘See here, in our Tarnished Chamber, our surrendered ideals. Such childish optimism!’
Cedorpul began turning away. ‘If that is all—’
‘Speak to me of sorcery.’
The priest paused, twisted to regard him. ‘What do you wish to know?’
‘The reach of your power. Your control over it.’
‘And in this, you are taking an academic interest?’
‘No. In this, I work at the bidding of the High Priestess.’
